Recyclers pledge to clear the air

A bicycle collection program for people in Ghana, backed by several area churches, has left some supporters confused about whether the bikes are being sold or given away.

Organizers of the collection are two brothers in the recycling business who regularly use church properties as their venue for seeking donations. Personnel interviewed at the churches say they understood that the collections were for the purpose of donating bicycles.

But James G. Wood of 45 Pierce Road, Sutton, and Dennis W. Wood of 6 High St., Holden, 56-year-old identical twins are not operating a charity.

The men run Green Day Recycling and sell the donated items. Some of the bikes do end up in Africa, but they are first sold to an intermediary in this country who then sells them overseas.

James Wood said it was never his or his brother’s intention to mislead the churches. He said he now understands where there may have been confusion and a need to better inform the churches and donors up front about what is done with the bikes.

“We will absolutely let each and every church know up front that bikes are sold ... Yes, we do earn income from the sale of the bikes after meeting various overhead,” James Wood said.

The brothers have contacted churches and made arrangements to use the parking lot on a Saturday to collect electronics and appliances — their main business — and new and used bicycles.

In some cases, they offer the church $50 to use the parking lot. Some churches are also given some money from the electronics drop-off fees. In letters or other communications to the churches, the brothers say many of the bicycles will go to Ghana. Others, they say, will be given to inner city kids in Worcester.

A church notice that was published in the Telegram & Gazette about an electronics and bicycle recycling event James Wood held at St. Joseph Church in Auburn earlier this month solicited: “New or old mountain, BMX, adult or kids bikes collected for Ghana ... .”

Church secretary Cindy Barnaby said the church receives a small percentage of the fee James Wood charges people to drop off used electronics. He paid the church about $640 for three recycling events last year. She said that she was under the impression that the bicycles that were collected were being donated to people in Ghana.

“He (James) supposedly is donating them to Ghana. That’s what we were told,” Ms. Barnaby said.

James Wood said he has never used the word donate. “The word is recycle,” he said. Representatives of Union Church of Stow, St. Michael Church in Bedford and Our Lady-Grace Parish in Pepperell said they were also told that many of the bikes will go to Ghana. They said they did not know the Woods were making money from the bikes that people were donating.

Debbie Lackey, business manager at Our Lady-Grace Parish, said she was told that they donated the bikes to places outside the country. She was also under the impression that the brothers did not make money on the donated items.

She added that the brothers did give the church “a little bit from appliances that are recycled. It’s usually a flat donation.”

Dennis Wood has listed Susan W. Rude, secretary at Union Church of Stow, as a reference on his letters to other churches for use of their parking lots. Ms. Rude said Dennis Wood has held three bicycle collections in the church parking lot. The last time was the weekend before Easter. She said she could only recall him giving the church $50 on one occasion.

“He got a lot of bikes. I knew that some of them went to Africa,” Ms. Rude said. “The time before, he gave the church $50 for using our parking lot. I said, ‘Don’t do that. We should be giving you money because you are sending them overseas to Africa.’ I think he was afraid he was taking advantage of us. Not that he was making money from this.

But, he wanted to compensate us for using our space.”

In a telephone interview this week, Dennis Wood denied that he and his brother have led churches to believe the bicycle collections are charitable events. He said that he and his brother work separately.

“I say the bikes are going to Ghana. And, that’s true,” he said. “Sure we sell the bikes.

That’s not a hidden agenda. We sell them at low cost. We are not getting rich off it,” Dennis Wood said.

He said the electronics business has been going downhill so money from sale of the bikes helps make up for some of the loss as well as cover the cost of storage, collection and repairs of the bikes.

Helena Siciliano, business manager at St. Michael Church in Hudson, where Dennis Wood held a collection this past Saturday, said she was told the bikes were being donated to needy kids. She said the church is paid about $200 each time, based on what Dennis Wood makes.

When told that some of the bikes were being sold, Ms. Siciliano said: “I wasn’t aware of that. I was led to believe they were being donated.”

In an interview earlier this month, James Wood said he got in the recycling business after he was laid off from the furniture industry during the economic downturn four years ago. He said his main business is collecting used electronics and appliances that he charges people a fee to drop off at a collection site. In turn he takes the electronics to a company that recycles the parts.

James Wood said he began to find more and more bikes discarded at scrap yards as he searched for electronics. A couple of times as he rode through Worcester with several bikes on the back of his truck, he was stopped by three or four people from Ghana who live in the city, who asked about the bikes. James Wood said he was convinced to work with the Africans to donate bicycles to them to send to people in Ghana to use for transportation.

“It’s a very pressing need in Africa to have bikes. Bikes in their country is equivalent to a car,” he said. “Mobility is like freedom. It opens up the world to a lot more possibilities.”

James Wood said about 1,500 of the bikes collected in the four years have been sent to Africa. The sturdier mountain bikes, which make up about 70 percent of the bikes collected, have been sent to Ghana and Tanzania. He said the road bikes, which aren’t used in Africa, are sold on Craigslist and the church gets part of the proceeds. Some churches contacted, however, said that they were not given any money for the bicycles, except for the $50 lot rental.

Earlier this month, James Wood declined to provide a reporter with names and contact information of any of the local Africans to confirm the relationship. But, he did give the name and phone number of a woman from Tanzania who lives in Dorchester.

Fatima Abed, a hospital worker, said she met the Woods last year when they were selling bicycles on Craigslist. Ms. Abed said she is in the business of buying different items to send to her homeland to be sold. She said she has gotten about 500 bicycles from the brothers. Some of the small children’s bikes are given to her, which she sends for children at her sister’s orphan school. The adult bikes, she buys for $10 to $20, and ships them to Tanzania to be re-sold.

“They’re not very good bikes. But, they’re not bad. I have to fix them,” she said.

The brothers also tell the churches that some of the bicycles are given to Emmanuel Baptist Church in Worcester to be distributed to inner-city kids.

The church’s pastor, Rev. Richard Wright, said he has received 20 to 30 bikes from the brothers since last year. He said the bikes have to be repaired before they can be used.

Rev. Wright said he met James Wood two years ago when he went to sales of used clothing and furniture he held at his home in Sutton. The used items that he did not sell would be given to Rev. Wright for the church’s thrift shop. James Wood would also purchase things from the church’s thrift shop to try to sell at his home, the pastor said.

James Wood said he and his brother will do a better job in the future of making sure churches know that the bike collection is a for-profit business.

“I will put in the church bulletins what happens to the bikes. We want to be upfront. All this will be discussed very openly every single time,” he said. “You’re right. There could have been some gray areas. We don’t want any gray areas with anybody.”

Contact Elaine Thompson at ethompson@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @EThompsonTG